Page Rank is it really that important ?

So I still see a lot of people busting a gut to improve their pagerank.

My question is, is it really that important anymore ?

I appreciate for back links etc it helps but if we go back 2-3 years ago I believe pagerank was quite important, but from what i now read on webmaster forums it seems that no one really cares anymore.

The reason I ask is that im just starting a new forum project, and want to know in what way should i proceed in.. should i spend money on improving my pagerank, or should i concentrate on backlinks, or any other of the 100's of things you can do to improve your SEO.

Anyway over to you. I would be interested to hear from a webmaster that has been successful in the past, in to what and how they would start with seo from scratch.

Thanks